Lost Man's River (88 page)

“Some say you took part in my father's death,” Lucius continued, keeping his voice low. “That you were first to shoot.”

The night before, camped under the moon at Mormon Key, his purpose had seemed clear, but standing here in the new heat of morning, with the Houses watching from the porch, he no longer knew why he had come nor what he might be looking for. He had finally caught up with Henry Short, yet within instants his whole inquiry seemed empty and unreasonable—what was the man to say? How could he act on anything this man confessed to, since even if Short's bullet was the first one, striking Papa dead before the others fired, that astonishing circumstance could not have changed the outcome in the slightest way.

“Well?” he demanded stupidly. “Is it true?”

The man's headshake was scarcely more than a twitch, as if he were bone tired of telling a truth which had never been believed—tired of lying, tired of running, tired of an unfulfilled existence. He seemed to indicate that the white man could do anything he liked, and Henry Short would go along with it out of indifference. “Your daddy always treated me real good,” Henry said politely, not to ingratiate himself but to ease the ridiculous situation in which Lucius had put them.

Lucius saw that he and Henry Short could have been friends. He had an impulse to offer his hand, but under the sharp eye of Bill House he could not bring himself to do that, knowing how weak and sentimental it would appear. Instead he told him, “You have nothing to fear from me,” and Henry nodded. “All right, Mist' Lucius,” he said simply. They did not say good-bye. Lucius turned and walked toward the dock.

“Well, that was quick!” Bill House called out as he went by the porch. Lucius raised his hand, taking time to smile at the husky blond boy who stood close as a calf at House's elbow. The boy had to subdue a friendly grin. This
chip off the old block had his gun with him, too—the oldest boy, named for Bill's cousin Andrew Wiggins.

“How's your list coming, Colonel?” Bill House called after him. “I sure hope you got
my
name on there!” When Lucius kept on going, he yelled angrily, “You hear me, Watson? Next time, don't try slippin up on us so quiet!”

Lucius Watson's visit to the Bend fired up old rumors in regard to Henry Short and did nothing to resolve the ambiguities. He had been too circumspect, failing to demand that Short refute the story in so many words—not that his denial would signify a thing. But in that case, why had he gone there in the first place?

Lucius recognized that the Bay families, despite their wariness of “Watson's boy,” had done their best to welcome him when he came back—that it was his own ambiguous behavior which had scared and angered them. Even the Hardens had warned him from the start that in asking his questions, he was making a serious mistake. The Harden clan was already shunned at Chokoloskee Bay, and Lucius Watson's presence made their danger worse, since it was believed that in any showdown, Lucius Watson would throw in with the Hardens, and would bring his gun. Except for Earl Harden, they had not complained, for they were tough and independent, but feeling guilty about worsening their danger, and trying to ease the tension on the Lost Man's coast, Lucius would leave from time to time, live on his boat and fish out of Flamingo or fish-guide out of Marco or perhaps go on a long bender at Key West. Yet he never strayed from the Harden family very long. For thirty years, until the Park came in, the wilderness at Lost Man's River was his home.

Two years later, the House family had gone north to the Trail to grow tomatoes and the Thompsons had replaced them on the Bend. “Probably heard there wasn't much hard work involved in caretaking,” Andy said, “or maybe Thompson believed those tales about Watson's buried gold. Henry Short must of heard them stories, too, because he stayed behind here after we left, kept right on diggin.

“Bein friends of E. J. Watson, Thompsons resented Henry Short. They believed he had raised his gun against a white man. Told him to start his digging over here back of the cistern, and when he was done, Gert made that place her kitchen garden, which she had planned to put in all along. Had him dig a pit for a new outhouse that bein a nigra he was not allowed to use.”

Lucius visited Henry Short again after the arrival of the Thompsons.
“He's hidin on ye,” Thompson told him when Lucius showed up at the Bend—his way of hinting without saying so that Yes, indeed, Henry Short had been involved. Thompson shooed his girls inside without offering help, and Lucius hunted Short down by himself.

It was the first real autumn day, a norther, when mosquitoes seemed listless even at dawn and dusk. He found the man mending net around the corner of the boat shed, perched on a sawhorse in the October sun, out of the wind. The ancient Winchester was leaned against the shed, well out of reach, though Short had heard his motor on the river and could have kept that gun at hand if he had chosen to.

Henry Short laid down his net needle and touched his hat. He rose slowly, ceremoniously, standing not stiffly but dead straight, and as before, he appeared resigned to anything his black man's life still had in store for him, including its relinquishment here and now at the hands of Watson. Had Lucius put a revolver to his temple, he might have flinched but would have remained still, less out of fortitude than fatalism and perhaps relief that his trials were coming to an end.

Henry brushed coon scat off a fish box for his visitor. Yes sir, he agreed, he had gone down to the shore that day. He had done so because his Miz Ida had told him to go keep an eye on Mist' Dan Senior.

“Why did you carry your rifle down there if you never meant to use it?”

“I don't know, suh.”

“If you don't know, then why should I believe your story?”

“I don't know, suh.” Neither insolent nor evasive, careful to speak in an open, earnest manner, Henry had looked his inquisitor straight in the face.

Lucius tried to be hard-minded and objective. “My father knew that Mr. D. D. House adopted you when you were little, and that you owed a debt to Mr. House. And we can assume that my father saw you standing in that crowd of armed frightened men who might panic and gun him down at any second. He knew that you were a crack shot, and he knew you might feel obliged to shoot if any of the House men became threatened. That correct so far? And being afraid of him, you probably feared that he might shoot you unless you shot him first—was that your thinking?”

“Nosuh,” Henry mumbled, suddenly retreating into negritude. “Wouldn't nevuh shoot Mist' Edguh Wasson, nosuh, wouldn't nevuh shoot no white mans, nosuh.” When Lucius gave him a severe look, he hunched a little in subservience, neck bent, eyes cast down. “White folks 'customed to seein Nigger Henry with Mist' Dan's old rifle. Maybe dat las' afternoon, dey imagine dey seen Henry raise it up like he fixin to shoot.” He shook his head. “Jus' mistaked dereself, dass all. Dem mens was busy watchin yo' daddy, see what
he might do, dey nevuh paid no mind to no ol' nigger. Anyways,” he wheedled, “dem white folks roun' de Bay was allus good to me. Dem Chrishun folks wouldn' nevuh tell no lies 'bout po' Henry.”

Lucius had jumped up in a rage. This man had lived his whole life among whites, and spoke like one, and furthermore, Henry knew well that Lucius Watson would never be taken in by this performance. What Henry was saying to him was,
Is this minstrel show what I must offer before you will let me live my life in peace?

Henry Short stood motionless, staring straight back at him. Then he blinked and slowly shook his head. That might have been all the denial Lucius needed, but Henry, reverting to his normal voice, resumed, unbidden, as if alerted long before to Lucius's coming, and to the inevitability of his questions, and to the necessity of answering him, at whatever risk. Very carefully, Henry said, “Mist' Edguh knew as good as anybody that Henry Short would never raise a gun against him.” Lucius searched his face for any sign of ambiguity. It remained impassive. They held that gaze and then, minutely, both men nodded.

After that meeting, their paths would cross from time to time along the rivers. They would lift their hats or make a vague half wave. Rarely, they smiled, then looked away and kept on going. Both were outcasts, taken in by the same outcast family, and that alone should have disposed them to a common trust, yet they shared an instinct not to seek the other out. They had spoken together only twice, yet felt no need to speak, because they
knew
. And though neither man would have referred to this odd bond in terms of friendship, a friendship was what, in its mute way, it had become.

High cirrus. Sun. A strange loud racketing, rising and falling, coming downriver.

“Ah hell.” Whidden stood up. They hurried the blind man back toward the boat.

Ibis and egrets scattered out across the sky, their squawking lost in the oncoming noise, which grew violently loud, as if the airboat had sprung free of the river surface, to rise over the treetops and crash down on them. Though it had not emerged from behind the bend, leaves shuddered and spun where the windstream from its airplane propeller tore at the trees. Then the motor howled—“They seen the
Belle
!”—and the airboat skidded into view, skating out wide onto the open river. There it idled, slopped by its own wake. When it circled back toward the bank, the metal hull pushed a bow wave crossways to the current.

Perched on a platform raised above the propeller, which was housed in a heavy wire cage over the stern, Crockett Junior in black T-shirt and dark glasses yanked at the controls with dexterous grabs and swings of his good arm. Dummy and Mud on the deck below were jamming clips into their carbines. On the bow, straining to jump, crouched the brindle dog.

“Ah hell,” Harden repeated, cranking the engine.

Andy and Sally were already in the cockpit, and Lucius was ready to let go the lines when Whidden raised a hand to check him. He cut the engine and, in no hurry, joined Lucius on the bank. An attempt at flight could excite a predatory instinct which might get them shot at, and anyway, the airboat could overtake them within seconds.

That they were so suddenly in peril, that the battering wind and awful racket might end in senseless violence, seemed incredible to Lucius, who could scarcely take it in. In this instant, there was less danger from the guns than from that dog—a large knob-headed male, squat and tawny, patched with brown, as if hacked rudely from a block of tropic wood. “He ain't tied,” Whidden's mouth was shouting, over the airboat's roar.

Crockett Junior spun the propeller in reverse, and the roar died in a buffet of hot wind as he killed the engine. In the stunned quiet, the airboat lost headway, riding its bow wave toward the bank. “You huntin trouble, Whidden boy? You come to the right place!” And Sally shrieked, “Junior? Take it easy, honey! There's no need to act crazy!”

Mud and Dummy had lowered their automatic rifles but neither made a move toward the dog. The pit bull, shivering, strained forward on the bow, tendons, jaws, and dirty gold eyes taut. As Whidden yelled, “Mud, grab that fuckin dog!” it sprang, striking the bank with an audible hard thud of bone-filled paws.